Electronic devices, including portable electronic devices, have gained widespread use and may provide a variety of functions including, for example, telephonic, electronic messaging, and other personal information manager (PIM) application functions. Portable electronic devices include, for example, several types of mobile stations such as simple cellular telephones, smart telephones, wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs), and laptop computers with wireless 802.11 or Bluetooth capabilities.
Portable electronic devices such as PDAs or smart telephones are generally intended for handheld use and ease of portability. With continued demand for decreased size of portable electronic devices, electronic devices continue to decrease in size. Thus, smaller devices are generally desirable for portability. Often these portable electronic devices include physical side keys (e.g., depressible keys, plastic keys, etc.) to input information. However, physical keys typically employ an electrical switch assembly that is soldered to a circuit board. As a result, coupling an electrical switch assembly to a circuit board typically results in an electronic device having a larger dimensional envelope or size.